Rawhide Down_ The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan - Del Quentin Wilber [54]
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ED MEESE HAD been conducting a meeting in his office when one of his aides burst in and told him what had happened at the Hilton. Meese and his visitors turned to see the “board,” a small computer screen that told top White House officials the location of the president. It suddenly flashed: “En route to GW Hospital.”
Meese hurried down the hall and found a cadre of staff members assembling in Jim Baker’s office. One of Baker’s assistants announced that Deaver was back on the line from the hospital. Baker put his phone to an ear; Meese picked up another line.
Deaver had terrifying news. “He’s taken a shot in the back,” Deaver said.
“Shit,” said Baker.
“Jesus,” said Meese.
A moment later, Baker and Meese heard Deaver pass the phone to Ruge, who informed them that the president seemed to be losing blood. Shocked, Baker jotted “P hit/fighting” on a slip of paper.
Lyn Nofziger, one of Reagan’s most trusted aides, entered the crowded office. “We need to tell the public that the president has not been wounded,” Nofziger told Baker, who was still on the phone and taking notes on his conversation with Ruge.
Baker gave Nofziger a stern look and held up his hand. Everyone immediately knew what the chief of staff was signaling: the president had in fact been wounded. The room went silent.
After finishing the call, Baker conferred with Meese and Nofziger. The three men agreed that they should all go straight to the hospital. A White House spokesman, Larry Speakes, would join them.
By now the phone was ringing constantly. A staff member informed Baker that Secretary of State Alexander Haig was waiting to speak to him. Baker picked up the phone and told Haig that the president had been shot in the back.
“It looks quite serious,” Baker added.
Haig said he would leave the State Department right away and come to the White House. He told Baker that he would arrange to have the other cabinet secretaries assemble in the Situation Room; he would also call Vice President Bush.
“I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I reach the hospital,” Baker replied. Then he, Meese, and Nofziger hurried toward a waiting car.
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DAVID GENS, ONE of GW’s four chief residents of general surgery, had been reviewing medical journals in the cluttered third-floor on-call room when his pager started beeping. Soon he was on the phone to the ER. A normally unflappable clerk answered the phone, and Gens overheard him screaming: “You want four units of uncross-matched blood STAT?”
Gens hung up the phone and sprinted out the door. He knew that someone needing four units of uncross-matched blood was in bad shape; ER doctors weren’t even taking the time to type-match the patient’s blood for a transfusion. Trauma surgery was like this—moments of tedium interrupted by crisis and the attendant flood of adrenaline. Gens was addicted to the rush: slight and intense, he had caught the trauma bug five years earlier, when, as a medical student, he had held a beating heart in his hands while another surgeon stitched closed a stab wound in the pumping organ. He liked the combination of quick thinking and delicate hands that trauma required, and it thrilled him when he sometimes saved a life that had seemed lost just minutes earlier.
On his dash to the ER, Gens was joined by Paul Colombani, another chief surgical resident. As they took a shortcut through the urology suite and crossed the threshold of the ER, Colombani looked out the hospital doors to his left and noticed a black limousine parked in the driveway. It had the presidential seal on one of its doors. “Look,” Colombani said, pointing to the car, but in the rush the meaning of the seal was lost on Gens.
As they entered the ER, Gens and Colombani were intercepted by Joyce Mitchell.
“Quick, come here,